


for such an arduous descent

by I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them



Series: Storms [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03 Finale, mentions of (past) flinthamiltons (especially flintthomas)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23058565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them/pseuds/I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them
Summary: “You wanted to see me,” he says, half question.“I did.” Silver finds his hand, resting between them, and intertwines their fingers. “And here you are.”-Silver comes to Flint after the battle against the British on the Maroon Island.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver
Series: Storms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683193
Comments: 12
Kudos: 138





	for such an arduous descent

It's quiet, after a battle.

Not immediately after, when there's the frenzy of checking wounds and clearing bodies and celebrating and mourning and planning for what's next, when the thrill of the fight is still thrumming through every man's blood with a pulsing intensity you can almost hear even without putting your ear to anyone's chest, when there's shouting and crying and cheering and sighing and talking.

But in the hours after, when the adrenaline has worn off and the things that need to be done or said have either been done or said or pushed off for tomorrow, when everyone has split off to find some peace, or at least rest, there is an echoing silence, like a raging river that turns into a moss-lined stream and trickles off to nothing.

The quiet has become as familiar to Flint as the noise. Both are as much a part of him as his name; both make him feel alive. Sometimes he almost loves them. No. Fuck that. They make him feel alive only because they make him feel like he is dying, and so cannot already be dead. He hates them both.

He has been granted his own hut, slightly separated from most of the rest of the crew. It's a privilege of being captain, he supposes; maybe in a day or so he'll feel grateful for it, when the men are no longer too tired to party. Right now, it just makes the quiet more profound in a way that is almost suffocating.

Sitting on the end of the bed, he can see the moon, bright and wide, hanging in the deep blue sky like it has nothing better to do. It casts a weak glow into his hut, falling in silvery beams across the floor by his feet. The room is dark otherwise; he hasn't bothered to light a candle or lamp. The sun was still up, though sinking, when one of the Maroons showed him in, and he has not moved since, content with sitting with his ghosts.

There is a knock, a surprise. Somehow he knows, before calling gruffly for the person to enter, that it will be Silver, although there is no reason for him to be here. When their hosts were showing them where they could all stay, Flint had not paid attention to where Silver would be. He had half wondered, seeing him standing beside Madi earlier, whether he would be joining the princess in her own rooms, wherever that may be. But if that was the case, he surely would not have left her to come here. And he is. Here.

Silver steps into the hut quietly, or as quietly as he can with the leg, as if he feels a need to tread carefully, both literally and metaphorically. Flint, still facing the moon, watches him from the corner of his eye as he crosses the room. Despite his oddly tentative movements, he does not pause to check for permission before coming to sit on the end of the bed right next to Flint, with only inches between them.

For several minutes neither of them says anything. Flint keeps looking at the moon, and Silver follows his gaze, takes in the view for a while.

Eventually they turn to look at each other. Flint asks, "Why are you here?" at the same moment Silver says, "It's dark in here."

They pause, awkward, and then Silver continues his own thought rather than answering Flint, because of course he does. "I thought when I walked up that maybe you would be asleep. But no, you're just sitting around in the dark. Why?"

"Nothing wrong with darkness," Flint says. He meant it to sound - well, he's not sure how he meant it to sound, really. Like he was joking, maybe, or being philosophical. But when the words come out, he hears how defensive he sounds. He does not need to defend himself, not to Silver, and certainly not over something so trivial as not getting up to find a lamp. He tries not to flinch at the infuriatingly understanding look that Silver's face softens into.

"I suppose not," says Silver. He glances back at the moon. "I think, though, that a comment like that would be more convincing if you were not just staring with such yearning at something bright."

"Why are you here?" Flint asks again, unable to put words to the way he is drawn not to the moon's brightness but to its enormity. "I thought you would be with Madi, or with the men. Or sleeping."

"I have been with them," Silver tells him. "But I wanted to see you."

So matter of fact. Like such a confession costs him nothing. Like it's just a fact of life. The ocean is deep. Fire is hot. My hair is long. I wanted to see you.

Not long ago he sat in front of him and said, in much the same tone of voice, that all he wanted was to get away from him.

Flint clears his throat. "You saw me a few hours ago."

From a distance, and then in passing a few times, and then in a debriefing meeting with their allies in which they didn't speak much to each other and even then only about strategy. It's not what Silver means and they both know it.

"Are you all right?"

It's an unexpected question, although perhaps it shouldn't be. No one ever asks Flint if he is all right. But John Silver is unlike anyone else.

"I told you already I have no serious injuries."

Slowly, Silver reaches out to stroke one warm finger along a small cut on Flint's neck. He's not sure how it happened; he didn't even notice it until he was washing other people's blood off his skin and one line of red didn't go away. "I'm glad," Silver murmurs, "But you must know that's not what I'm talking about."

It is probably too much to hope that he cannot feel the way his pulse races at his touch.

"It was both," he admits softly. "Warning and welcome."

Unconventional, perhaps, to pick up in the middle of a conversation from weeks earlier, but he trusts Silver to remember and understand.

Silver nods. He lets his whole hand come to rest on Flint's neck, palm wide and hot, fingers curled in a way that is designed to assure him that he will not harm him while reminding him that he could if he wanted.

Flint should not allow it. He should pull away immediately, should break Silver's fucking wrist to teach him not to take such liberties, should not have done anything to make him ever think such a thing could be welcome. His treacherous body lists into the touch.

"A battle like that must be difficult for you to reconcile yourself with, then," Silver comments, "If you find that kind of violence simultaneously comforting and horrific."

That is a concise way of putting it. He nods, slightly, shivering at the feel of Silver's thumb moving with his throat.

"That's why I wanted to make sure you were all right." Silver's face is barely illuminated by the moonlight. Flint does wish, now, that he had lit at least one small light. "When I saw you walking toward me out of that forest earlier... Jesus Christ, Captain."

Flint does not know what he looked like after the battle, but he can imagine. The way he felt was indescribable, but the closest word he can think of has to be _feral_. And that moment, seeing Silver, his already wild soul seemed to connect with him across the water, this man who is discovering the same frightening delightful sense of identity within the darkness that he himself has tapped into. For a moment it felt like they became one being, and he could not have cared if the rest of the world fell to shredded pieces around them.

He has spent the last few hours trying to forget that feeling, to rehumanize them both in his mind, and to separate them again.

Yet he knows: that is what it is going to be like, from now on. There will be more battles. They will fight many of them side by side, and even if they don't, they will always find each other in the aftermath. And it will always feel like that. Two dark, wild creatures, tied to each other in some deep incomprehensible way, terrified, violent and fucking loving it, looking to each other to ask _You too?_

Not knowing whether he's talking about following him into this hole or about showing care for his mental well-being or about the way he's still touching him, he whispers, "What are you doing, Silver?"

"I have no fucking clue," Silver admits. "Are you going to tell me to stop?"

He lets his silence answer for him.

Silver says, "I'm going to light a candle so I can see you."

Flint manages to restrain the pathetic whine that threatens to sound when he removes his hand and moves away. He watches Silver rummage around for light, snorts when he grumbles a curse when he can't find anything, and gets up to help him look.

Finally the hut is filled with a soft orange glow from two candles, and they stand facing each other in the middle of the room. Silver's eyes are very dark. Flint wants to get lost in them.

"I need to know if I'm reading this wrong," Silver says softly. Flint isn't even completely sure what book they're reading, let alone whether they're on the same page, but somehow he still feels sure that whatever conclusion Silver has come to is correct.

"You're not."

It sounds like a confession. It sounds like a surrender to some unnamed battle entirely different from the one they have just won. It sounds like he is opening his arms to something he should be pushing away.

Silver does not act as if it is a victory, or as if Flint is showing any kind of weakness at all. He just smiles, carefully, like someone receiving a wonderful gift from a person they were unsure would give them anything at all, and steps closer.

After a lifetime of bar fights and prizes and raids and battles, this may be the most dangerous situation he has ever been in. John Silver could reach into his chest and remove his heart and slice it to bits and he might not even know it was happening until it was over. Worse, he might know and let it happen anyway.

He has never felt safer putting himself in another person's hands.

Silver stops directly in front of him, so close, too close, not close enough. The candlelight reflected in his eyes dances like tiny little flames burning from inside him. Flames sparked by a flint, perhaps, Flint thinks. He has thought something similar before, looking at Silver: _I did this; I made him what he is now_. Usually the thought is accompanied by an overwhelming sense of guilt. The grinning young man he met a few months ago, annoying as he could be, did not deserve this life. But now, intoxicated by Silver's tentative smile so close, he cannot find it within him to regret it.

Slowly, as if waiting for him to flinch away as he would with anyone else, Silver raises his arms to clasp both of Flint's shoulders. It should make Flint feel restrained, but it just makes him feel grounded. His heartbeat has been racing since the battle and is only made faster by Silver's hands on him, but even so this makes him feel steadier. He wonders not for the first time how Silver held him when he dragged him from the sea when he was drowning. And what would it have been like, when he got air into his lungs again? Was it like this?

He needs to do something with his hands, so he reaches for Silver's waist, pulls him closer so they are chest to chest, lifts his hands to cling to the back of his shirt. Silver moves his arms to accommodate, wrapping around the back of Flint's shoulders and neck. One hand comes to rest on the back of his head, the first time anyone has touched him there since he shaved it, and he gasps at the odd sensation of fingers on his scalp and running across the fuzz. He hooks his chin over Silver's shoulder, and Silver breathes shakily into his neck, and for several minutes they stay like that, hanging on each other.

"You should sit," he whispers eventually. "Howell will kill us both if you fuck up your leg any more by putting too much weight on it."

"Can you fucking imagine?" Silver mutters. "Captain Flint and John Silver murdered by the ship's doctor. What an unglorious end to the story."

Flint smiles. "At least it would prove your hypothesis about us being each other's ends mostly incorrect."

"Well, there's that." They pull apart slowly and move back to the bed. Silver reclines, his curls spreading across Flint's pillow, and asks, voice low, "Will you take the peg off?"

All at once Flint has several realizations - that he is not the only one who is vulnerable right now, that he is not the only one who feels safe here anyway, that Silver is not planning on leaving for a while. Throat thick, he nods and sits near Silver's one foot. As he unbuckles the prosthetic, he tries not to be overly gentle, knowing how poorly Silver takes to being coddled. He tries not to make an ordeal of this at all. They both know what a show of trust this is, Silver allowing him to do this, but he cannot comment on it unless Silver does first. He pulls the leather away from the stump, careful not to hurt him but not letting himself look at the wound for more than a moment, and puts the peg on a small table next to the bed.

With that taken care of, he lies next to Silver, and they both roll onto their sides to face each other.

"You wanted to see me," he says, half question.

"I did." Silver finds his hand, resting between them, and intertwines their fingers. "And here you are."

"Here I am," Flint echoes. It's the oddest thing: he really does feel present, in this moment, in this room, in this body. For a decade it has felt like he has been distantly watching someone else move his limbs and use his voice. When people look at him, they see that person. Miranda, for all she helped create that person, couldn't stop trying to look past him at the man he used to be. John Silver looks at him and sees _him_ , sees the place deep within him where those two men become one, and instead of loving or hating either one, he accepts that all of it is there for better or for worse.

Silver inches closer, so their foreheads and noses are almost brushing.

"Tell me I'm reading this right," Flint breathes, even though by this point he can't think of any possible other way to interpret this. Silver answers by tipping forward that last little bit to press their lips together.

Flint makes a small sound in the back of his throat and pushes into the touch, lifting his hand to hold Silver's face and deepen the kiss. Silver's lips are a bit chapped - the weeks of dehydration and sun exposure during the doldrums not so far in the past - but the slightly scratchy feeling just reassures Flint that this is real.

He pulls away after a few moments, trying not to smile at the low protesting noise Silver makes, because this must be established before they go any further: "This is not just adrenaline."

Silver's eyes soften. "No, it's not."

"And it's not just because of what I told you a few nights ago."

"About Thomas," Silver murmurs gently.

"Yes."

"It helped, knowing that you could trust me with something so important to you. And knowing without a doubt that you're interested in men, I suppose." He grins, but sobers quickly. "But no. It's not just because of that."

Flint strokes his thumb along Silver's cheek. "We're not going to be able to go back from this."

"I think we're a bit past being able to go back whether we go forward or not, Captain."

"Yeah," he says, wincing at how raw his voice sounds, "That's probably true."

Silver could say something obnoxious here, gloating about Flint admitting he's right about something. If this had happened a few months ago, or maybe even a few weeks ago, maybe he would have. But if this had happened back then, everything about it would have been different. As things are, Silver just smiles, something small and genuine. 

"So kiss me."

Flint surges forward, and Silver meets him in the middle, lips still curled with the remnants of his smile but quickly opening to lick into Flint's mouth. Suddenly their hands are all over each other, clutching at any skin they can find. They fall so Silver is on his back, Flint partially on top of him, separating only long enough to pull off their shirts before Flint is pressing their bodies together, kissing along Silver's neck and chest, scraping his fingers along his rib cage.

“What do you want?” he asks breathlessly. It’s a dangerously open question – Silver could ask for anything in the world, and with how feverish he feels in this moment, he would probably give it, no matter what it might be.

Silver whimpers as Flint’s fingers dig into what must be a particularly sensitive spot. “Fuck, Captain, everything, I don’t – ” He gasps as Flint licks a bead of sweat off his collarbone. “Your mouth, I want your mouth.”

“You want me to suck your cock?” he purrs into his ear, relishing the way he shudders.

“Yes, yes, fuck, please.”

He considers – very briefly – trying to act coy here, draw it out, tease him, pretend he’s not just as desperate. But just as in the rest of their partnership, this is not going to work if they don’t see each other as equals, and anyway he really does want this, so he just scrambles to get Silver’s trousers off and then sinks down and takes Silver’s cock down his throat in one quick motion. He misjudges slightly and almost chokes himself, but readjusts easily, and it’s worth it for the stream of disbelieving expletives from Silver.

He bobs his head up and down a few times before pulling back, grinning at Silver’s low whine and dancing his tongue around the tip.

“Jesus Christ,” Silver says hoarsely, one hand cupping the back of Flint’s head for a moment, flexing as if searching for a handhold, before falling to his shoulder.

Flint licks a slow, broad stripe along the full length, starting at the base and moving up the underside, then does it again when it makes Silver’s fingers dig into his skin hard.

He carries on like this for a few minutes, licking and kissing and occasionally letting his beard brush against him because of the charming little startled noise that draws out, and then he swallows him down again.

This time he doesn’t move at first, and holds Silver’s hips down so he can’t move either; he just holds him there in his mouth, letting himself relearn the familiar weight.

He has always loved this part. The stretch of his jaw, the taste, the needy gasps of his partner, the way he is filled up and can focus on nothing but sensations and breathing. It used to calm him, doing this. In his life he has always had to be so alert, so conscious of politics and appearances and everything else, but when he did this, he could forget about all of that for a bit. There were more than a few nights that started with a terrible meeting and ended with him on his knees before Thomas, letting his world narrow to just this.

It has been a very long time since he has had this.

And it’s good. It is. It’s very good. Silver’s cock is perfect for this, big enough to fill his mouth satisfyingly but not so big it hurts him, and he’s still got a hand clutching his shoulder, and Flint has been unmoored for so long that this should be an incredible anchor. And in a way, it is. It is such a relief to feel this – to feel something familiar from when he was happier. To feel something other than pain or hatred. To feel vulnerable without feeling weak. To feel _anything._

But this used to make him calm, and in this moment he does not feel calm. He feels fucking terrified, because this feels almost like coming home.

He doesn’t realize there are tears in his eyes until Silver wipes some of the moisture away with his thumb.

“Captain?”

Flint lets Silver pull him off. “I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking.”

So he is. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Silver’s thigh. Inhales and exhales. Lifts his head to meet Silver’s gaze, two thirds concerned and one third analytical.

“Is this your first time with a man since him?” Silver asks softly.

“There has been no one at all except Miranda,” he confesses.

He can see Silver’s mind working in response to that, considering his place on that list, not unlike the other night. Recognizing the significance of Flint granting him, and no others, this intimacy. He must have had some idea of it – they know each other well enough by now that the idea of Flint turning to whores should be laughable, and Silver himself has observed that Flint has never trusted his crewmen or allies – but having a suspicion confirmed often changes things somehow.

“I’m all right to continue,” Flint says, hoping to avoid Silver articulating any of the meanings they both know lie in what he has just told him. “I just need a moment.”

“Are you sure?”

Something in his chest is unraveling, and the loose threads are tangling around his heart and squeezing. He’s not sure what name could be given to that feeling, if it’s good or bad, if something has been fixed or damaged beyond repair, if he’s being liberated or killed.

He’s not sure if he’s going to regret this. He’s not sure what’s going to happen next. He’s not sure how he feels about letting himself admit that Silver is, in some undeniable way, becoming as important to him as Thomas and Miranda were. He’s not sure how either Thomas or Miranda would feel about that, what they would make of John Silver, what they would make of who Flint himself has become in their absence. He’s not sure if he was right to dismiss the idea that Silver might be his end.

He is unsure of a great many things. But wanting to continue this? That he is sure of. He is sure that whether it is unwise or not, he wants – maybe _needs_ – John Silver in this moment.

He moves back up the bed to kiss him, firmly but without urgency, in an effort to calm both his own discomforted restlessness and Silver’s worry. Silver is a bit tense, but kisses him back, and slowly they both start to melt into it again.

Both of their erections had waned somewhat in this interlude, but as they keep kissing and as those kisses start to get more heated again, the mood returns easily.

Silver separates their mouths and says breathlessly, “Fuck me.”

Flint shudders. If he wasn’t hard before, that would do it. Still, he pauses to ask, “Are _you_ sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A barely distinguishable tremor of nerves flashes across Silver’s face as he says it, and it gives Flint pause but he chooses to trust Silver to know his own limits, at least in this. He nods in acceptance.

As he rises to pull his trousers off and look around for some kind of oil, he asks in what he hopes is a casual tone, “Have you done this before?”

“Not like this,” Silver answers, which is probably intentionally vague, “And not in a long time. But yes.”

Flint has questions, but is not about to disrupt this already fragile moment. “All right,” he says, returning to Silver with the bottle he’s found. He kisses his temple, praying it comes across as tender rather than patronizing. “Let me know if I hurt you.”

“I will.” That at least sounds more convincing, which is a relief, and when Silver spreads his thighs for Flint to settle between them, he wraps one hand around Silver’s cock and moves the other back to press an oiled finger against his hole.

Silver arches into the touch, and Flint pushes the finger inside, quickly followed by a second, thrilled by the punched-out noise Silver makes.

“Good?” he checks as he scissors his fingers.

“ _Yes_ ,” Silver hisses.

Flint watches his face as he continues to work at stretching his tight rim. It’s remarkable, seeing him like this – skin flushed, eyes wide and dark, mouth slightly open. Willing to give a short, straightforward answer. And so laid bare, without artifice, so all that’s left is simple, genuine desire.

He drives his fingers in, hitting the most sensitive spot, and Silver keens.

“Fuck, Captain, come on.”

“You know you don’t have to call me that,” he says, trying to keep his voice level as he fucks Silver with his fingers even though this is affecting him almost as much.

“What would you – oh, shit, God – what would you rather I call you?”

“James is fine. Or Flint. Whatever you want. There’s just no need for titles in this.”

“All right,” Silver pants. “Then will you, James, please fuck me, John, now?”

Flint laughs – and when was the last time he smiled this many times in one night? – and reaches for the oil, but Silver – or John, if that’s what he wants – takes it from him and pours it over his own hand, taking hold of Flint’s cock, slicking him up with a liberal coating of oil and teasing him in the process, squeezing at the base and tugging up the length, twisting in just the right way, dragging his thick thumb over the slit, making Flint moan.

He pulls John’s hand away, letting him interlock their fingers, and with his other hand lines up his cock at John’s entrance. He meets his eyes, and at his nod, he pushes inside achingly slowly, both of them groaning at the sensation. He grabs hold of John’s shoulder, using the leverage to drive in harder.

“Fuck,” he stutters when he bottoms out. “Silver, John, fuck.”

John looks dazed, but is composed enough to thrust his hips up and demand, “ _Move_.”

He pulls most of the way out and slides back in, hard and fast, and then again and again, leaning in to swallow John’s babbled profanities with a desperate kiss, but they’re both breathing so heavily that they have to pull away and just pant into each other’s mouths; Flint drags his mouth along John’s jaw, pressing hot kisses in a wet line and leaving little bites here and there, not sharp enough to leave marks but enough to make John gasp.

“Oh, Jesus, _James_ ,” mumbles John after a particularly forceful push, and for a second Flint thinks it’s a bad exclamation, until John grabs his arse and holds him even closer, and he has to press his face into John’s neck for a moment.

He can feel his own motions getting more erratic as he struggles to hold himself together, and he asks, “Are you close?”

John nods frantically and brings their joined hands down to his cock. Together they jack him, almost matching their strokes to the increasingly uneven rhythm of Flint’s thrusting; it’s a slightly awkward angle, but it’s difficult to care, when all Flint can focus on is the sensations from all the places they’re touching: their fingers brushing between each other on John’s hard cock, Flint’s other hand now holding John’s thigh, John’s other hand now digging into the small of Flint’s back, their chests pressed together, Flint’s cock still deep inside him.

They’re so close it’s almost like they’re becoming one, and he can tell instinctively that they’re both on the verge. He pulls most of the way out to slam in one more time and in the same moment gives John’s cock one last squeeze.

For all his talking in every other context, John Silver goes completely and utterly silent when he comes. Flint watches the orgasm wash over him, his back arching, eyes fluttering closed, mouth falling open, release spilling in quick bursts between their bodies, and then he follows a moment later with a cry.

In a haze he draws out and cleans them both off, then collapses on the bed beside John, whose eyes are still closed; he pushes a sweat-drenched curl out of his beautiful face and whispers, “All right?”

“Yes,” he says faintly, and after a suspended moment of quiet he turns his head to look at him. Those cunning eyes, glittering in the dim light, dance over Flint’s face, and he doesn’t know what he’s looking for there but makes himself submit to the scrutiny without flinching anyway. Finally John seems satisfied and repeats, more sure this time, “Yes, I’m all right.”

Without needing to communicate the urge, they lean in at the same moment for another kiss, this one different than all that preceded it. Where only a few minutes ago they were passionate and forceful, this kiss is soft and slow and so achingly tender that it makes Flint shiver a little.

They settle, John on his back and Flint on his side with his hand resting on John’s chest near his heart and his face tilted so his forehead brushes against the side of John’s head. All is still, and the only sounds are their breathing and the distant call of a bird somewhere.

Flint is reluctant to break the calm, but asks, “Are you staying here tonight?” and John hums a tired noise he chooses to interpret as an affirmation and puts a hand over his.

A sudden gust of wind breezes through the hut, just strong enough to blow out the candles. Flint thinks about getting up to relight them, but before he can so much as move, John squeezes his hand and says, “Don’t bother.”

“No?”

“Nothing wrong with darkness.”

He kisses his cheek rather than try to say anything around the sudden lump in his throat.

Slowly John’s eyes fall shut and breath evens out, but Flint stays awake for a while longer, feeling the rise and fall of his chest under his hand and watching the moonlight reflecting off their rings.

There is quiet, after a battle. He is used to that, used to the inherent solitude, the certainty that he is losing himself in an abyss that no one else could join him in. Yet here Silver is with him, and somehow he has transformed the silence and the darkness and the fear into something shared and beautiful.

Is this salvation, or a sign that their mutual self-destruction is imminent?

John huffs in his sleep and shuffles closer, and Flint decides that the worry can wait until morning. He wraps himself around his lover’s warm body, and for the first time in months, he sleeps soundly through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Find me on tumblr at sparrowsfallingfromthesky.  
> Title is from Storms by The Ballroom Thieves.


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